I’m certainly not up on every music trend, and certainly not every entertainment headline grabs my attention. We live, after all, in a world of too much information (“Bob Dylan’s goldfish ‘Henry’ dies of natural causes”), but this one definitely caught my eye this week: “Enrique Iglesias injured in concert mishap with a drone.”
Apparently, drones armed with cameras are used at major concerts these days for the purpose of taking photos or video of the audience. Why exactly this is necessary, I’m not sure. I get Ned Luberecki to take shots of the audience for us with an iPhone, and that seems like a much cheaper method, and, judging by this Enrique Iglesias story, a whole lot safer.
Iglesias sustained the injuries when he grabbed the drone while it was hovering somewhere within drone-grabbing range, something he was accustomed to doing during his shows (drone-grabbing is all the rage in some circles and is being discussed as a future Summer Olympics event). This time, however, the little gismo cut his hand. In fine it’s-all-part-of-the-show spirit, Iglesias continued the concert “with his hand bloodied and bandaged.” Iglesias even smeared blood on his white T-shirt in the shape of a heart. His publicist cited that as “another example of his professionalism.” Think about that the next time you stop your show because of a hangnail! Just a note for you young publicists reading this: “another example of his (or her) professionalism” is a wonderful all-purpose statement about anything your client does. Consider using it often.
Naturally I got to thinking how unlikely a headline “Doyle Lawson injured in bluegrass festival mishap with drone” would be, and since we were recently dealing with least-heard phrases in bluegrass music, that would make a good first entry in a list of unlikeliest bluegrass entertainment headlines.
By the way, this Enrique Iglesias mishap took place at a concert in Tijuana during his international “Sex and Love” tour. It’s safe to say that anything that happened at all during a bluegrass artist’s “Sex and Love” tour would also make for a very unlikely headline.
Here are some others:
- Dailey and Vincent to release tribute album to Madonna, entitled Material Boys
- Trampling deaths on the rise at bluegrass festivals
- Mac Wiseman to sing Dreams of Mother and Home as musical guest on Keeping Up With the Kardashians
- Sierra Hull returns to Berklee School of Music to head up new sumo wrestling program
- Ralph Stanley to join Kermit the Frog in duet version of Oh Death on PBS’s Sesame Street
- IBMA announces Kanye West as Rhonda Vincent’s co-host for 2016 awards show
- C.F. Martin announces new diversified product line, to include smartphones, handguns, and Martin-branded snack food.
- Banjo edges out didgeridoo and bassoon in People magazine’s annual “sexiest instrument alive” contest
- Steep Canyon Rangers team up with the Dalai Lama to release first ever completely silent bluegrass album
Next week: why drones will eventually replace bass players.
